Member blog post: How misogyny, body shaming and hypersexualization in media skew modern perceptions of female beauty

For our November regional event, Southern California JAWdesses partnered with Ms. Magazine to host a public forum on women, body image and the media at the Feminist Majority headquarters in Beverly Hills. More than 60 attendees – many of them journalism and media students from area colleges and universities – braved the early Saturday morning chill for the 90-minute presentation, “Mirror, Mirror: How Misogyny, Body Shaming and Hypersexualization in Media Skew Modern Perceptions of Female Beauty,” moderated by So Cal JAWS member Amy Lieu (editor, SoCal Connected).

While the panel began, not too surprisingly, with a dissecting of Kim Kardashian’s Paper magazine expose – the week’s online trending topic – the discussion quickly veered from “booty beauty” to feminist networking (with Kort encouraging feminist bloggers to pitch Ms. for cross-content posting), village building (McDonnell noting the importance of surrounding ourselves with positive images of women in our own lives) and self-empowerment. “It’s important to care for our bodies as part of ourselves,” said Gonzales, “not beauty reasons.”

The organizers wish to send a special thanks to Pia Guerrero, founder of Adios, Barbie, for facilitating our live tweets during the session with immediate past president Lauren Whaley and other SoCal JAWS members. We extend a huge note of gratitude to Karon Jolna, managing director of Ms. in the Classroom; Susie Gilligan head of west coast media for Ms. Magazine and the Feminist Majority Foundation; and Ms. intern Brianna Kovan and to our eager volunteers from Klein’s Women’s Studies classes at Santa Monica College.

For more on the panel, follow the Twitter discussion at #jawsbodyimage.